A Three-Pronged Verification Approach to Higher-Level Verification Using Graph Data Structures

Abstract

Individual model verification is a common practice that increases the quality of design on the left side of the Vee model, often before costly builds and prototypes are implemented. However, verification that spans multiple models at higher levels of abstraction (e.g., subsystem, system, mission) is a complicated endeavor due to the federated nature of the data. This paper presents a tool-agnostic approach to higher-level verification tasks that incorporates tools from Semantic Web Technologies (SWTs) and graph theory more generally to enable a three-pronged verification approach to connected data. The methods presented herein use existing SWTs to characterize a verification approach using ontology-aligned data from both an open-world and closed-world perspective. General graph-based algorithms are then introduced to further explore structural aspects of portions of the graph. This verification approach enables a robust model-based verification on the left side of the Vee model to reduce risk and increase the visibility of the design and analysis work being performed by multidisciplinary teams.

Keywords

• digital engineering
• model-based systems engineering
• ontology
• Semantic Web
• verification
• multi-domain modeling